The birds would spend all night transfixed by the lights. And they would die.

But the people who designed the lighted tribute to 9/11 victims didn’t want their work to be known for killing birds, NPR’s Robert Krulwich writes today, so they started turning the lights off every 20 or 30 minutes.

“[A]s soon as the lights were off,” reports Cornell’s Andrew Farnsworth, “the calling activity dropped to almost zero.” The birds calmed, and went their various ways. Some years there’s little or no need to flip the switch; only a few hundred birds pass through every hour. But when the wind is blowing the right way, when a weather front is signaling “time to fly,” tens of thousands of birds will show up; and in 2004, and again in 2010, the lights were shut down five separate times.

That’s as it should be. Lives were lost on that bright dark day, 13 years ago. When we turn our giant candles to mark their passing, we don’t want to hurt anybody. Those little winged flashes of white tumbling through the night look too much like souls. They need their rest.

The agency in charge of the Vikings stadium says the building will join the program, followed by other large buildings, to lower the light levels during migratory periods.

About the blogger

Bob Collins was with Minnesota Public Radio from 1992-2019. He was senior editor of news in the ’90s, ran MPR’s political unit, created the MPR News regional website, invented the popular Select A Candidate, started several blogs, and every day lamented that his Minnesota Fantasy Legislature project never caught on.

I just want to know how much the vikings pay for bird corpse removal… the building I work in catches a number of birds, and there is a facilities guy who is paid some percentage of his salary to clean up bird corpses…

Ralphy

I’d bet the Zig will pull some sort of deal that requires the good citizens to purchase exclusive bird harvest licenses from him for the privilege of picking up and disposing of the bird carcasses.